Medicines to be dispensed to patients at hospitals and health centres are usually administered 1 to 7 times a day. The dosing is performed in such a way that the dispensing nurse retrieves the data and doses of the medicines to be dispensed to each patient from a patient data register, and doses them in dispensing units to be placed ready on a tray or medicine organizer. The same medicine organizer or tray may contain the medicines for several patients, for example in such a way that the medicines for the patients in the same patient room or the medicines for the patients with the same disease in the same department for one or several days are dispensed on a single medicine organizer or tray. In each organizer, the medicines are dosed in such a way that the medicines for one patient are usually divided into different dispensing units according to their time of administration. In other words, a single medicine organizer or tray may contain dozens of medicine doses, and therefore the dispensing units have to be clearly marked with the person for whom the medicines in each dispensing unit are intended, and the time when they are to be administered to this patient. At present, the dispensing units are identified in such a way that the dispensing nurse writes or prints out an identification tag or label provided with the patient's name and data when the medicines in said dispensing unit have to be administered to the patient, and attaches said tag or label to each dispensing unit. After the dispensing, the ready dispensed medicine organizers or trays are often transferred to a marked place (e.g. a shelf on a locked cabinet) in a dispensing room, marked with e.g. the number of the department or room where the medicines dispensed on said medicine organizer or tray are intended to be delivered.
A drawback in the present method is that the dosage and dispensing of the medicines is performed entirely manually, wherein in spite of double checking there exists the possibility that the medicines dispensed in the dispensing units are not the medicines which were intended to be dispensed, or that the dispensing units to be administered are confused because of a human error at some stage. The same procedure is followed when dispensing vitamins to be administered to patients, and samples or sample units taken from patients, so that there is also a risk of confusion because of a human error in the storage or delivery of vitamins to be administered or samples to be taken.